With the nice fall weather continuing to hold we decided to take Lulu up to one of our favorite ares - the Brecon highlands just north of Cardiff. Perhaps not high for US-West coast standards they are quite high for this area. Here are some photos from our day out. We visited Brecon Market town, Brecon Cathedral, Tre-tower castle (where Lulu was able to try mulberries off the tree) and a drive up over the highlands before returning home.
Kelly's parents and aunt Nancy are in town so we took the opportunity to take a weekday and go without the kids to visit Bath England. Typical english weather we had rain and sun off and on the entire day but generally it was favorable and nice considering we are now in October. And what a great city to visit! As the guidebooks will say, its a must visit if you come to England. Its is a very ancient city and as the name suggests is named for the Roman Baths that were the centerpiece of this town from the beginning. Bath is considered to be the southern most tip of the cotswold region of England. You can see the buildings all have a similar golden hue that comes from the sandstone in the region used to build all the stone buildings in the city.
Noah is our climber.... he just started climbing up the door frame recently... he make it look easy, but I tried it myself and it was definitely not.
There are many chains in the UK, but this is our favorite - Waitrose. Its a pleasure to shop in. This is a shot of the Waitrose branch in Cowbridge where I often stop at on the way home from work.
Over the last couple days we have had some stormed with some amazing clouds before and after. Here is a shot yesterday afternoon from our patio.
The storm passed through overnight with some heavy rain and thunder but was gone by the morning. Today swim classes started back up again for the kids so we were down at Atlantic College and got some nice shots by the castle and water.
With good weather this weekend, I thought it might be good to let Hunter and Noah attempt their first real mountain summit. Noah came down with a sore throat and flu symptoms during the night Saturday, so it was just Hunter and me. My target peak was Pen-y-fan in the Brecon Beacon area of South Wales. At 2907 ft it is the highest peak in south wales and the highest in southern Britain south of Snowdonia. Of course we were up Snowdonia in North Wales last summer, but as we gained the summit by train except for the last 100 ft, it doesn't really count:).
Hiking was great. Sunny, breezy, turning quite gusty at the summit. Hunters first mountain summit! Note the sheep in the pictures beside Hunter. This was an uber friendly .... and smart sheep that has figured out that people will feed it on the summit of Pen-Y-Fan. If you made eye contact with this friendly creature it would head your way.
